Thursday, April 17, 2008

Happy Trails......"Air" McNair.....


Steve McNair........

A "mans' .....man. A black quarterback who excelled at the highest level. Today, Steve McNair retired from professional football.

No teary eyed press conference..........no fanfare..........just a retirement. So refreshing.....coming on the heels of a guy named Brett Farve..........and that media fiasco. Oh....he's crying.....Oh........so ......Brett!....

No.......McNair had dignity ..........a dignity attained from a life of being .......black.

Nothing came easy..........He was a star quarterback in high school.....but.....none of the big schools recruited him. If they did, they wanted him to play defensive back. After all, he was a black athlete..........he could not (in their eyes) play the QB position in major college football.


From Wikipedia....

College career

McNair, is a native of Mount Olive, Mississippi and played collegiately for Alcorn State University, a historically black university which competes in the NCAA's Division I-AA Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC). Many major colleges recruited McNair to play defensive back, but Alcorn was one of the few institutions that recruited McNair to play quarterback. Steve followed the footsteps of his older brother, Fred McNair (who played at Alcorn 1986-1989) and chose to attend Alcorn State University.

In his senior season (1994), he amassed incredible statistics - throwing for 4,863 yards with 44 touchdowns and rushing for 936 yards. McNair was subsequently selected with the third pick in the 1995 NFL Draft by the Houston Oilers. McNair was brought along slowly in the NFL by the Oilers, backing up or sharing time with quarterbacks Chris Chandler and Dave Krieg.


Chris Chandler.....Dave Krieg?..........Where are they......now?

Surely not of McNairs' statue...........Here are his stats in the NFL:

Career statistics




Passing
Rushing
Season Team GP Comp Att Pct Yds TD INT Att Yds TD
1995 Houston Oilers 4 41 80 51.3 569 3 1 11 38 0
1996 Houston Oilers 9 88 143 61.5 1197 6 4 31 169 2
1997 Tennessee Oilers 16 216 415 52.0 3228 14 13 101 674 8
1998 Tennessee Oilers 16 289 492 58.7 3228 15 10 77 559 4
1999 Tennessee Titans 11 187 331 56.5 2179 12 8 72 337 8
2000 Tennessee Titans 16 248 396 62.6 2847 15 13 72 403 0
2001 Tennessee Titans 15 264 431 61.3 3350 21 12 75 414 5
2002 Tennessee Titans 16 301 492 61.2 3387 22 15 82 440 3
2003 Tennessee Titans 14 250 400 62.5 3215 24 7 38 138 4
2004 Tennessee Titans 8 129 215 60.0 1343 8 9 23 128 1
2005 Tennessee Titans 14 292 476 61.3 3161 16 11 32 139 1
2006 Baltimore Ravens 16 295 468 63.0 3050 16 12 45 119 1
2007 Baltimore Ravens 6 133 205 64.9 1113 2 4 10 32 0

*Totals 161 2733 4544 60.1 31304 174 119 669 3590 37

I don't believe McNair will ever be inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame........but he will be in my Hall of Fame of great black quarterbacks..........


Air McNair..............from little old Alcorn State...........You stood tall.....you .......were a man......

ESPN's story on McNair.......

Take a look:






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